


Fire and Feathers

by thisbluespirit



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, F/M, Falling buildings, Injury, Jedi, Treat, Wingfic, Wings, the Republic still falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23856157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: Winged beings with fiery swords keep falling from the sky.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 22
Kudos: 68
Collections: Genprompt Bingo Round 17, May the 4th Be With You Star Wars Fanworks Exchange 2020





	Fire and Feathers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadaras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts).



> With thanks to Persiflage for the beta!
> 
> (Also written for the genprompt_bingo square "Magical Creatures.")

**i.**

Here in the Lake Country, the fighting feels deceptively far away, but Padmé knows it’s not. She wishes she were in Theed, at the heart of it, but she knows her duty as Queen is to remain out of enemy hands as long as she can. Help is on its way.

A drone flies overhead, firing off a stray bolt, and she ducks down into the grass. No need for wishes. The invasion has caught up with her already. She shields her eyes with her hand to look up and sees the drone has been followed by a lone Jedi, his wings spread wide against the sky as he dispatches the drone with his lightsaber, and the pieces fall and scatter across the hillside.

There’s a droid battle flyer close behind the Jedi, forcing him to dive and weave away from it. Padmé reaches for her blaster, takes aim, and fires, and the birdlike droid spirals out of the sky and explodes a few paces away from her. She has no time to feel satisfaction as a laser bolt fires across her shoulder, scorching the fabric of her dress and she dives, trying to roll around and fire back, but the droid is too close. She isn’t going to be fast enough.

The next shot never hits her; instead the Jedi is there between her and it, taking the blast across his wings before landing beside her.

“Stay down,” he shouts over the noise of another flyer joining the attack, as he takes hold of her; pulling her in as he opens his wings only to fold them in around them both, muffling the sound of the shooting and shutting out the light.

Pressed against him, Padmé can feel his inadvertent reaction every time the laser bolts find their mark. She tightens her hold on the blaster and pulls away as far as she can, looking for a way to fire out from under his cover. The Jedi are used to using their wings as shields, but he can’t survive this onslaught forever.

“I said, stay down,” he says into her ear, gripping her arm. She catches hold of the loose folds of his robes then, steadying him against the attack as he grits his teeth and bows his head. His grip becomes painful, but she doesn’t try to pull away – she’s only concerned about doing something to _stop_ this before she’s the death of a Jedi. 

He swallows, his hand cold and clammy against her arm. “It’s all right,” he says, as the shots die away. After a moment of further silence, he releases her and lifts up his wings, wincing at the movement. It’s not all right, she thinks.

Padmé draws herself up, and looks back down at her rescuer. He’s sitting on the grass, breathing hard, his wings a mess of blood and broken feathers. There are more pieces of feathers on the grass around him, like cream and red tinged flowers. She’s never seen a Jedi this close up before, though she’s always been fascinated by the idea of them. Their ability to fly, to retain the wings that wither in the first weeks of everyone else’s life sounds like a fairy story to her. Once upon a time, she wished she could fly, too.

“You’re hurt,” she says, crouching down. 

He shakes his head, even though it’s patently the truth. “I’ll be all right. Thank you.”

Padmé reaches out a hand, wanting to touch the feathers, to assess the damage, but draws her hand back in time. It’s not done to touch a Jedi’s wings like that.

“Your Majesty,” says a new voice behind her, and she turns to see another Jedi, this one taller and older, with his lightsaber still ignited in his hand, and she understands now why their attackers stopped. They’re in pieces on the ground beside him.

Padmé faces the newcomer even as Captain Panaka comes tearing up to join them.

“Your highness,” Panaka says, “you’re unhurt? What were you doing out here alone?”

She raises her chin and merely gives the captain a nod, before extending a hand to the older Jedi in front of her. “We thank you, Master –?”

“Qui-Gon Jinn,” he says with a bow, and then nods over to his fallen comrade. “I see you’ve met my Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

* * *

**ii.**

Padmé sits in the darkened bedroom, a thin robe wrapped around her delicate silken white nightgown and waits, listening until she finally hears a soft movement from out in the living area.

She slips out to find Obi-Wan walking in from the balcony, his wings folding in behind him, no Jedi cloak to cover them tonight.

“I should not be here,” he says as he grasps both her hands and kisses her forehead. He’s right: the danger is over and Senator Amidala has no more immediate need of a Jedi bodyguard. Anything else would be exceeding the mandate.

Padmé leans in nearer. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I couldn’t keep away,” he says and she feels anticipation flutter within her. 

It had only been a joke, to start with, teasing him about wanting to touch his wings, to find out what it felt like. When did it turn serious? Maybe, Padmé admits to herself, it never was truly a joke.

“You’re sure?” she whispers. The Jedi act like they’re a race apart from all the other beings, and everyone else tends to treat them the same way. She can’t say she likes it. They all had wings once. She doesn’t know if it’s right to keep the Jedi so separate, either as beings above the rest any more than being reviled as unnatural creatures. It’s true, though, the Jedi have a complicated history and she’s begun to understand that many of their strange rules are there for a reason. The last thing she wants is to hurt Obi-Wan.

He nods, and bends in to kiss her lightly, before he draws back and opens up to his full wingspan. “Your call, Senator.”

Padmé circles him, drawing in her breath. She’s worn many ornate gowns made of all kinds of fine fabrics, and she thinks his feathers are more beautiful than any of them. She moves nearer, running a light hand over the back of his wings, where the feathers fit so closely and form a natural shield. Her hand slides over the surface as if it’s transparisteel and silk, her fingers tracing out the tawny brown patterns and the cream-coloured feathers. She notices gold flecks in them for the first time. At odd moments as she continues walking around him, one of them catches the light and she sees a brief gleam, gone too soon to be sure she didn’t imagine it.

Facing him again, she touches the inner wing, feeling how much softer the feathers are on this side. She pulls back her hand and swallows. She tries to make light of her feelings. “What’s the old tale?” she murmurs. “If we do this, will you turn into a monster? What kind?”

“That’s not how it is,” he says, shaking his head at her, watching her closely as she examines his wings. “It’s a very complicated rule. And with you, my lady? No. Never.”

Not many non-winged beings get this close to a Jedi. Padmé finds she’s holding her breath as she pulls him in nearer. She looks upward, at the top of his wings, where she can’t quite reach, and he laughs suddenly and lowers himself to kneel so that she can run her hand along the bones at the edge and feels the quiver he gives under her touch, sees the way he closes his eyes as she moves her hand downwards across the outer feathers, pressing a little harder, past the shield gloss, feeling individual feather strands.

She circles him again, and joins him on the floor, putting her arms around his neck and sliding forward into his hold. He threads his fingers through her long hair and his wings fold in around them instinctively, feathery edges light against her skin and her nightclothes.

“I’ve never –” he says, cut off by her kiss; and then, “Not quite like this, anyway.”

Padmé holds him tighter and shakes her head against him.

“We must,” he adds almost helplessly, “be careful.”

She nods. “I know,” she returns, “I know.” And she does; she knows exactly how it is to be bound so tightly by duty. She has obligations of her own she cannot lay aside, either. 

When she wakes in the morning, she almost wonders if it was a dream, but when she turns her head, she finds a single feather on the pillow and knows there’s no going back.

* * *

**iii.**

Violent orange and purple storm clouds roil around Coruscant’s skies. Padmé stares out through the window, her fingertips touching the transparisteel as she watches the Jedi Temple burn. Tears roll down her cheek that she fails to register, absorbed in the horror of what’s playing out before her like a giant holodrama across the city world. 

Padmé lowers her gaze, trying not to think of it again – the Chancellor revealing his true self at last, unfolding terrible wings of deepest wine-red and darkest navy even as he declared the Jedi traitors and rebels. The Sith, so he said, were the true protectors of the Republic – and now he makes the Republic into his Empire. His mysterious young protégé is at his side with powerful wings of crimson and gold, blazing like fire, his talons ready to rip any Jedi’s wings to shreds.

Where is Obi-Wan in all this? Padmé feels sure he can’t be dead, that she would know if he were, but as the hours stretch out and all she can see is the heart of the Republic on fire, she begins to think she’s deluding herself.

The Senate District shakes again at another clap of thunder as the Emperor takes flight. Buildings tremble and, as she catches at the nearest support, she sees sections fall in the wake of it, leaving dolls’ house towers torn open.

Even as she shivers, understanding that none of them are safe as the Sith empty Coruscant of dissidents, something suddenly shoots in past her from the doors to the landing strip and tumbles onto the carpet in an uncharacteristically undignified heap.

“Obi-Wan!” says Padmé, darting to his side, and putting her hand to his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

He nods, drawing himself up. “More or less. Sorry. It’s rather turbulent out there.” He glances over at the nightmare outside the window and a shadow crosses his face. Then he lets her help him to his feet and grips her hands.

“Padmé,” he says, “you can’t stay here. We must leave.”

She turns, opening her mouth to object and then stops as the building trembles again. It’s no light matter, though, for a Jedi to carry another being with them, even for the shortest of distances. They might both plummet to their deaths.

“Are you sure?” she says.

Obi-Wan leads her out to the edge of the balcony. “Yes. Trust me.”

“I don’t think I have a choice,” she says but she gives him a quick smile and kisses his cheek before tightening her hold on him. She presses her head in against him so she won’t have to look, and they jump.

For one moment, they drop down, and then slow and halt, his wings beating against the unnatural storm, and finally they rise upwards through ash and feathers that drift in the air like snow. Padmé can taste smoke and smell burning fuel and duraplast from crashed speeders all around them as they’re scattered straight into buildings or down to the ground. The whole world is falling.

Padmé and Obi-Wan, though, they don’t fall – they fly.


End file.
